The OCI (u) s Betrayal

Transcription

1 Nahuel Moreno The OCI (u) s Betrayal CEHuS Centro de Estudios Humanos y Sociales

2 Nahuel Moreno The OCI (u) s Betrayal 1981 (Translated from Panorama Internacional, Year VI, No 19, Madrid, 1982) English translation: Daniel Iglesias Cover and interior design: Daniel Iglesias Copyright by CEHuS, Centro de Estudios Humanos y Sociales Buenos Aires, 2017 cehus2014@gmail.com CEHuS Centro de Estudios Humanos y Sociales

3 Table of Contents The OCI (u) s Betrayal Chapter I The Theory of Progressive Bourgeois Camps From the Possibilists to Bernstein Menshevik revisionism: the theory of progressive bourgeois camps The Bolshevik and Trotskyist response Stalin and the popular front Mao and the theory of contradictions Revisionists and Marxists: summary of differences...7 Chapter II Revisionism in revolutionary parties Kamenev-Stalin vs. Lenin and Trotsky Stalin and socialism in one country Marceau Pivert and the combat popular front Molinier and Schachtman: the first appearance of the camps theory in our ranks The Pabloite version of the camps theory Bolivia and Nicaragua: Two applications of Pabloite revisionism The reasons for a capitulation...17 Chapter III The Anti-imperialist United Front as Expression of the Theory of Progressive Bourgeois Fronts The Lambert-Favre theory of the anti-imperialist united front Stalin, Mao, and the struggle against militarism and imperialism in China Mao and the Japanese invasion of China The policy of the Third International for the colonial and semi-colonial countries The theoretical context of the Third International positions The Chinese revolution and Trotsky s theoretical evolution...26

4 Chapter IV French Reality Seen Through the Camps Theory Two incompatible camps The seed of a civil war A new agreement between Pablo and Lambert A deliberate confusion The actual French reality The true incompatibility Who foresaw the current French situation?...34 Chapter V The politics of the OCI (u) The Lambert-Forgue theory of the Mitterrand camp The other member of the progressive camp Driving the bourgeois government towards anti-capitalist positions Is planting hopes different to depositing trust?...39 First example: The Health Insurance Fund Second example: The strike at the airport Lambert, adviser to Mitterrand A strange break with the bourgeoisie Lying to the masses to protect the government Protect the government or fight it? The Lambertist version of the combat popular front The OCI applies a Stalinist policy A tradition betrayed The revolution by stages, Lambert version The OCI has no government slogan A clear prediction...49 Chapter VI What if there is a Civil War in France? Civil war between the camps Civil war without armament of the proletariat Civil war without destruction of the bourgeois army The special virtues of the popular front The three examples of Lambert...56 Fight with Kerensky against Kornilov... 56

5 The Japanese invasion of China The Spanish civil war True Bolshevik and Trotskyist politics...58 We fight militarily in the popular front camp The military alignment is a tactical episode Transforming the struggle between camps in class struggle Overthrowing the bourgeois government and seizing power Chapter VII The Policy for the Counter-revolutionary Workers Parties The OCI does not fight the counter-revolutionary workers parties Instead of denunciation, fraternal criticism The OCI (u) calls the SP and the PCF to form a united front A theoretical confusion at the service of betrayal A united front within the united front The true politics of Lenin and Trotsky An exceptional tactic for an exceptional circumstance The origin of the united front tactic A contradictory tactic The united front in our ranks The tactic of entryism The workers and peasants government The revolutionary workers front The only strategy of Trotskyism...74 Chapter VIII The OCI abandons the Transitional Program for a Minimal Program The OCI acknowledges it has no program Trotsky versus Frank-Molinier-Lambert The tasks and slogans of Pablo and Lambert A policy based on the hopes of the masses The Trotskyist policy starts from the objective factor A confusion in the character of the slogans The nature of our Transitional Program The axes of the Transitional Program The reformism of the OCI...82

6 Chapter IX An Opportunistic Program in the Face of the Minimum Needs of the Masses The situation of the French proletariat The OCI does not fight against the misery of the French proletariat Unemployment Support for government nationalisations Education Immigrant workers The class problem in this discussion...93 Chapter X A Minimal Program for the State and the Church First omission: the Fifth Republic Second omission: the Presidency of the Republic Third omission: the bourgeois Armed Forces The OCI abandons the fight against the Church The theory of camps in the governmental apparatus How to dismantle the state apparatus, according to the OCI...99 Chapter XI Lambert and Pablo Support the Government How the support for the government is expressed Are some bourgeois governments more progressive than others? The position of the Trotskyists A gross misrepresentation of our position A key discussion Appendix In reply to some criticisms The OCI (u) at the rearguard of the first wave A. The platform of Orly Airport: capitulation to the bureaucracy B. Renault, the second betrayal C. Awaiting the political maturity of the masses The OCI (u) violates elementary principles of the workers movement A. Luis Favre s shameful explanations

7 3. Mitterrand is part of the world counter-revolutionary apparatus A. The OCI (u) does not attack French imperialism B. OCI (u) lies about its policy C. An editorial in six months Union policy of the OCI (U) for the workers movement A. Apoliticism: bourgeois politics Union policy of the OCI (U) for the student movement A. Favre replies to Nahuel Moreno B. The true reasons behind a policy Bibliography of Works Quoted Documents by the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste (unifié)..122 Documents of the Pabloite Current Documents of our Current Books...123

8 Chapter I The Theory of Progressive Bourgeois Camps The leadership of the OCI (u) [Organisation Communiste Internationaliste (unifié) Communist Internationalist Organisation (Unified)], like any revisionist leadership claiming to be Trotskyist, hides its true positions behind a tangle of Trotskyist phrases. Instead of saying they support the government and the popular front coalition led by Mitterrand, as a Stalinist or a social democrat would do, they assert our tactic is directed against the bourgeoisie; and in this fight against the bourgeoisie, [we do not take] the slightest responsibility for the Mitterrand government. (Draft Political Report, p..3.) 1 However, it is enough to set aside the phrases needed to disguise oneself as a Trotskyist for the OCI s true politics to appear: In this fight against the bourgeoisie, taking no responsibility for the Mitterrand government, we are in the camp of Mitterrand in his actions of resistance to the bourgeoisie. (Ibid, p. 3.) Since the document mentions no other tactics or combination of tactics, we must conclude this is the central orientation of the OCI for the entire next period: to be in the bourgeois camp of the popular front. We must acknowledge the power of synthesis by the author of the document (Pierre Lambert); this formula is, verbatim, the one used by all revisionists of Leninism and Trotskyism. With total clarity, Lambert tells us the OCI is part of the camp composed by the traitorous workers parties, Gaullists and leftist Radicals and led by the highest institution of the bourgeois state and the Fifth Republic the presidency, exercised by Mitterrand. Supported by all historical experience, Trotskyism holds the popular front camp is bourgeois and therefore counter-revolutionary. This character is accentuated to the maximum when the popular front reaches government because it becomes the leader of the capitalist camp through the exercise of capitalist state power. The present revisionism of the OCI has not led it to change this classical conception. Lambert is aware that he has gone over to the counter-revolutionary bourgeois camp ; for this reason, he hides his revisionist merchandise stating his tactics are directed against the bourgeoisie. If we develop this reasoning, we come to a novel conclusion, to say the least: that Mitterrand s is a rather bizarre bourgeois camp, since it carries out actions of resistance to the bourgeoisie and the main, or only, tactic of the OCI is to be a political part of it. It is obviously a contradiction. Aware of this, Lambert tries to base his tactics on the following argument: Lenin and Trotsky were part of Kerensky s camp against Kornilov; Trotsky was part of Chiang Kai-shek s camp against the Japanese invasion of China and of the Spanish Republic camp against Franco. We reply that, indeed, Trotsky formed part of those bourgeois camps against their respective adversaries, and he called those who opposed such tactics as traitors. But there are two fundamental differences between Trotsky and Lambert. Trotsky never said we 1 See bibliographical references at the end of this work. Editorial CEHuS Page 1

9 Nahuel Moreno should be a political part of the Kerensky-Chiang-Negrin camp but only a military member. Besides, all his tactics were aimed at destroying that camp. That was his goal when he entered it, and so he proclaimed it. His policy could be summarised in the phrase, We are in Kerensky s military camp to defeat him, as the only way to defeat Kornilov and all the Kornilovs who will come. When Lambert says one must be in the camp of Kerensky or Negrin in their actions of resistance to the bourgeoisie, he is stating not only that he fights against the Kornilov uprising and Franco s fascist insurrection, but he supports the political actions of Kerenski and Negrín. The three examples given by Lambert relate to historical situations in which the objective circumstances forced the revolutionaries (the Bolsheviks in Russia and the Trotskyists in China and Spain) to form part of a common camp with a bourgeois government against the fascist or Bonapartist reaction or the imperialist invasion of a semi-colonial country. But they constantly denounced Kerensky as an agent of Kornilov, Chiang as an agent of the Japanese, and Negrin as an agent of Franco and they fought their actions as being anti-worker. It is a situation similar to the one that leads us to apply the tactic of entryism in some mass bourgeois-worker party. Let us suppose in a great social-democratic party (Blum s, for example) there are currents of the left that begin to develop positions similar to those of Trotskyism. According to Lambert, we would have to apply entryism saying that we are with Blum in his actions against the bourgeoisie. We Trotskyists hold and do the opposite. Upon entering, we would denounce Blum s counter-revolutionary policy more than ever and we would try to develop those Trotskyist-like currents to destroy Blum s party from within and recruit those currents for the national section of the Fourth International. This is Trotskyism traditional principled policy when the objective situation forces us to enter or remain in a front or party that is not the party of the working class in the struggle against the bourgeoisie. Then, returning to Lambert s current policy, he is in a progressive bourgeois camp against another bourgeois camp he considers to be more reactionary. This is the most notorious characteristic of revisionism in this century. This revisionism has historically been expressed in two ways: that of the Mensheviks and that of Stalinism. The essence of Menshevism with its anti-tsarist front and of Stalinism with the popular front (which we will develop in detail a little later) comprised: the axis, the permanent strategy of those parties, is to form those fronts with the liberal bourgeoisie (the Mensheviks) or democratic bourgeoisie (the Stalinists), even when they do not exist in reality. There is a third type of revisionism that differs from the previous one as the formation of the multiclass fronts of this nature is not its permanent strategy but a reaction to objective reality. Let s explain. When two bourgeois fronts face each other in a physical confrontation (colonial war, a civil war between republicans and fascists, etc.) in revolutionary parties appear opportunist currents that capitulate politically to the bourgeois leadership of the progressive camp. They use the argument of defeating fascism (or imperialism) first. This is the case of Kamenev and Stalin in 1917, Stalin Bukharin in 1924, Stalin Mao in , Molinier Schachtman in 1936, Pablo in 1951, Mandel regarding Nicaragua in 1979, and now the OCI in France. The first two revisionist groups are a clear political project that is constantly pursued: the formation of a camp with a progressive sector of the bourgeoisie. The leadership of the same may be formally in the hands of a bourgeois-workers party, as it happens with the present Mitterrand camp in France. But its pro-capitalist, counter-revolutionary essence does not change; no matter how much it is led by the counter-revolutionary workers parties and whether only the shadow of the bourgeoisie takes part in it. This is why the political line of progressive bourgeois camps is revisionist. Page 2

10 The OCI (u) s Betrayal The third revisionism is the empirical response to a process of reality, to the emergence of two bourgeois camps physically confronted. It does not respond to a general conception but makes up an opportunist capitulation. In some cases (such as Molinier s, which we will see later) the capitulation is not directly to the progressive front but to its left wing, to some wing of a bourgeois-workers party part of the camp but maintains a critical position in front of its leadership. This political line is as revisionist as the previous one, since it does not try to break the camp, but to push it to the left. In the present chapter, we will dwell on the consequent revisionists. In the next one, we will study the turncoats of the revolutionary parties. 1. From the Possibilists to Bernstein When we say the theory of progressive bourgeois camps makes up the basis of revisionism in this century, we refer to post-bernstein revisionism, i.e., after the Russian revolutions of 1905 and fundamentally of However, we think it useful to quickly review the previous revisionists and their differences with Menshevism. Bernstein s revisionism corresponds to the era of rising capitalism and the beginnings of imperialism when the struggles of the workers movement conquered reforms that did not question capitalist private property or the bourgeois state. Let s start with the French situation in the 1880s, to see how Bernsteinian revisionism is a typical product of that time. In 1881, the proletarian organisation, called the Federation of Socialist Workers of France, suffers a major electoral setback. As a result, there is a strong internal discussion that leads to the formation of two currents, which are faced in the Congress of Saint Etienne. The minority, led by Jules Guesde, claimed to be Marxist. The majority has gone down in history with the name of possibilists, the nickname put to them by Guesde s followers. This current, that proclaimed to be an enemy of Marxism, had all the conceptions that later characterised Bernsteinianism, the first revisionist current within Marxism. They promulgated in their organ, Le Proletaire [The Proletarian], the famous formula, Raising, somehow, in the immediate term, some of our demands to finally make them possible (hence the nickname of possibilists ). This phrase means, in practice, the abandonment of the struggle for socialism, fighting only for the crumbs that capitalism can grant. Twenty years later, Bernstein takes up this conception. He was based on a fact, the workers movement, in its great struggles, wrested from capitalism one conquest after another (legalisation of the unions, later on of the socialist parties, etc.). This is why Bernstein considers the struggle for socialism through the conquest of power is not posed. For him, the daily program of the workers movement and social democracy consists in conquering reforms, not in proposing revolutionary tasks that question capitalist private property and the bourgeois state. Socialist society would be reached through the accumulation of reforms, and the very conquest of power would be the product of a gradual evolution. For Bernstein, the parliamentary state structure is above the classes, and the proletariat can come to power within its framework. In summary, socialism would be the product of the social gains of the proletariat and the electoral advances of social democracy (today we have 10 deputies, tomorrow we will have 100, and the day after tomorrow the majority in parliament). This conception, embodied in the famous aphorism movement is everything, the end, nothing, explains that Bernstein did not formulate a strategy for the conquest of power, but only tactics. From this conception, based on the reality of the class struggle and the practice of the workers movement of his time, Bernstein reaches the general theoretical conclusion the historical process would always develop with this dynamic and perspective. He argues the Editorial CEHuS Page 3

11 Nahuel Moreno stage at which imperialist capitalism can grant reforms will be constantly expanded, and will only end with socialism. The historical process gave a resounding denial to this conception and to the reformist politics derived from it. The first imperialist war showed that the world capitalist regime and the imperialist countries could not continue to expand the democratic rights and the minimum conquests of the working class. On the contrary, the survival of the system forced capitalism to wrest from the workers the economic and political rights already granted. Rosa Luxemburg and initially Kautsky opposed the Bernsteinian theory. They pointed out the central problem of social democratic politics was the conquest of power by the proletariat, not the achieving of small reforms. Those who developed this conception the most were Lenin and the Bolsheviks, and it is no coincidence in Russia, the revolutionary overthrow of Tsarism was on the agenda as the first step to get the minimal and democratic conquests already achieved by the workers movement of Western Europe. 2. Menshevik revisionism: the theory of progressive bourgeois camps The Russian Mensheviks are considered, with good reason, as a pole of fundamental importance in the development of Marxism this century. Today they are known much better than Bernstein, whom many consider an antiquity who should only be studied by historians. Instead, Menshevism, as a political current antagonistic to Bolshevism, is an obligatory point of reference. However, there has not been enough reflection on this current as a starting point of the revisionism characteristic of the present century. Menshevik revisionism is the opportunist response to a historical stage different from that of Bernstein. It is not for the stage of the minimal conquests of the proletariat of the advanced countries, but for the stage of revolutions and counter-revolutions. In Russia, the struggle between Bernsteinians and orthodox (revolutionary) Marxists manifested itself as a fierce battle between economism and Iskrism; between those who said the working class should fight for economic gains and those who gave a political focus to the struggle the overthrow of the Tsar to establish democracy. The struggle between Mensheviks (revisionists) and Bolsheviks (Marxists) had an entirely different axis. Both agreed completely in the struggle against Bernstein and his Russian disciples, the economicists, and that the axis of the workers struggle in Russia had to be for the overthrow of the Tsar. The Mensheviks never denied the need to fight for the overthrow of the Tsar as an immediate task of the workers movement. The difference with the Bolsheviks lay in how to do it and what kind of regime should follow. The great contribution of the Mensheviks to revisionism is the theory of progressive bourgeois camps or fronts. According to this theory, to overthrow autocratic tsarism and establish a new regime, the workers movement and its parties were to form an anti-tsarist camp or front, whose leadership would be in the hands of the liberal bourgeoisie and its party, the Kadet. To put it in the words of Axelrod, one of his most important theorists: The proletariat is fighting for conditions of bourgeois development. The objective historical conditions make it the destiny of our proletariat to inescapably collaborate with the bourgeoisie in the struggle against the common enemy (quoted by Trotsky, Three Conceptions of the Russian Revolution, Writings of Leon Trotsky ( ), p. 58). During the Russian Revolution, Plekhanov, the former-marxist who had become a spokesman for the social-patriot far-right, said: We must cherish the support of nonproletarian parties and not repel them from us by tactless actions. (Ibid, p. 60.) From there to the theory of the revolution by stages was a single step. The Mensheviks held that the overthrow of Tsarism, far from ending the anti-tsarist multiclass front, would open a stage in which, under the rule of the liberal bourgeoisie, backward Russia would become an advanced capitalist country. In this stage, the proletariat would gain experience Page 4

12 The OCI (u) s Betrayal and conscience, through the struggle for minimal claims. Then the second stage would open; the stage of the conquest of power by the proletariat. The essence of Menshevik politics was synthesised years later by Trotsky, by stating that the line of demarcation between Bolshevism and Menshevism was that this sought to form a common front that is, political collaboration with the class enemy. (The Crisis of the French Section, p. 56 and 57.) 3. The Bolshevik and Trotskyist response Faced with the camps theory of Menshevism, Lenin and Trotsky proposed an opposite theory. The adoption of this second theory, each on his own, is what explains their profound unity in 1917 and the fact of jointly leading the October Revolution, overcoming their previous divergences. For them, the fundamental division of Russian society is, as held by orthodox Marxism, in classes: bourgeoisie and proletariat. The axis of its policy is the development of the class struggle until the conquest of power by the proletariat. From this derives a camps theory diametrically opposed to that of the Mensheviks, because outside of the two fundamental classes, there are other exploitative and exploited sectors in society. One of these is the counter-revolutionary camp, composed of Tsarism, the landowners and the entire bourgeoisie, including the anti-tsarist liberal sectors. The other, the revolutionary camp, is composed of the working class, the peasants and all the exploited. This is, as we can see, a camp theory based on the traditional Marxist conception of the class struggle. The difference between Lenin and Trotsky before 1917 was that Trotsky developed this theory to its ultimate consequences. By understanding, like Lenin, the true nature of the opposing camps, Trotsky came concluded the revolutionary camp required a leadership, and this could not be other than the proletariat. With this, he refuted, at the same time, the Menshevik theory of the revolution by stages. Given the revolutionary, anti-capitalist camp is headed by the proletariat, the revolution against the exploiters is directly socialist because of its class dynamics, its tasks and the type of government it will impose for power: a dictatorship of the working class supported by the peasantry and the whole of the exploited. This is the theory of permanent revolution as developed by Trotsky at the beginning when drawing the lessons of This theory of Trotsky has a fundamental deficiency; it does not include the concept of a centralised party to lead the working class (which in turn leads the revolutionary camp) in the fight against Tsarism. At this stage between 1905 and 1917, Trotsky conceived the proletarian organisation as a party of the type of Western social-democracy, suitable for elections and parliamentary struggle, that is, for reformist, non-revolutionary action. In Lenin the opposite contradiction takes place. He shares Trotsky s conception of the character of the camps, but he does not consider which class should lead the revolutionary alliance of the exploited classes. Therefore, he agrees with the Mensheviks regarding the two stages of the revolution. Whereas, his conception of revolutionary organisation is a centralised party, fit for the struggle for power. His general conception is more revolutionary than that of Trotsky because the practice of the construction of such a party would lead him to the same conclusions as of the former. Lenin will finally reach these conclusions, not by assimilation of the theory of permanent revolution, but as a culmination of the development of his own theory of camps and the party. The contradiction in Trotsky s thought was resolved in 1917, by a process analogous to that of Lenin. The development of his theory convinces him, after years of fighting the Leninist conception of the party, of the need to build a centralised organisation like the Bolshevik to make the revolution. Lenin s party was, thus, the right one for Trotsky s theory. Editorial CEHuS Page 5

13 Nahuel Moreno The synthesis of Leninism and Trotskyism that takes place in 1917 obeys the class logic of the camps theory shared by both. 4. Stalin and the popular front The conception of the camps and of the struggle between them that surpasses the class struggle appears, thus, with the Mensheviks. However, who elevates this conception to the level of a general theory, of a permanent application by the workers parties in all countries and circumstances, is Stalin with his popular front. In 1935 the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International was held, already totally dominated by Stalinism. There, this strategy is promulgated, which has become the characteristic of Stalinism ever since. The problem under discussion was the advance of fascism in Europe. The triumph of Mussolini, some fifteen years before, was now joined by Hitler in Germany, while the Third French Republic had gained strong Bonapartist features since the reactionary uprising of Trotsky says: The conclusion has been drawn from this that what is necessary is the firm unity of all democratic and progressive forces, all the friends of peace (there is such an expression) for the defence of the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and Western democracy, on the other. ( ) At the centre of all the debates at the congress stood the most recent experience in France, in the form of the so called People s Front, which was a bloc of three parties: Communist, Socialist, and Radical. ( The Comintern s Liquidation Congress, 23 August 1935), Writings of Leon Trotsky ( ), p and 90). As we see, this is the theory of camps, now at the international level. Where the Mensheviks said Tsarism, Stalin says fascism ; and instead of the anti-tsarist liberal bourgeoisie, we have the anti-fascist democratic bourgeoisie. The international reactionary camp, led by Nazi Germany, is composed of fascist Italy, the Japanese government and other forces such as Lavat in France and Franco in Spain. The democratic camp is made up of the Soviet workers state and the so-called democratic and friends of peace forces the popular front government of Blum, his Spanish namesake of Largo Caballero and Negrín, and French, British and American imperialisms. The policy of the communist parties in all countries should be oriented around the strengthening of the antifascist democratic camp at the national and world levels. Everything possible must be done to keep the democratic bourgeoisie in the antifascist camp, which is precisely what the Mensheviks advocated regarding the liberal bourgeoisie. At the national level, this policy had its clearest expression in Spain, where the CP became part of the popular front government of Largo Caballero before the civil war, and Negrín s during the same. The theory of popular fronts has known several forms. For example, in semi-colonial countries, the Stalinists seek to form anti-imperialist fronts with the so-called national or anti-monopoly bourgeoisie. But the essence is always the same; the formation of the progressive bourgeois camp. 5. Mao and the theory of contradictions As we have seen, the Mensheviks were the first to apply the policy of progressive bourgeois camps, while Stalin raised it to the level of a permanent strategy. A step was missing: to elaborate a theoretical-philosophical principle to give it a foundation. This is the role played by Mao Tse-tung, with the theory of contradictions. In his well-known work On contradiction he said, raising at a philosophical level what was his policy against the Japanese invasion of China: Page 6

14 The OCI (u) s Betrayal When imperialism launches a war of aggression against such a [semi-colonial] country, all its various classes, except for some traitors, can temporarily unite in a national war against imperialism. At such a time, the contradiction between imperialism and the country concerned becomes the principal contradiction, while all the contradictions among the various classes within the country (including what was the principal contradiction, between the feudal system and the great masses of the people) are temporarily relegated to a secondary and subordinate position. (Mao, Selected Works, Vol 1, August 1937.) And he concludes: Hence, if in any process there are a number of contradictions, one of them must be the principal contradiction playing the leading and decisive role, while the rest occupy a secondary and subordinate position. Therefore, in studying any complex process in which there are two or more contradictions, we must devote every effort to finding its principal contradiction (Ibid.) Reversing the order of the arguments, we have that for Mao there are principal and secondary contradictions in society, but the character of principal or secondary is not permanent, but changes according to the circumstances. He himself says that in capitalist society, the two forces in contradiction, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, form the principal contradiction (ibid.). But, when an imperialist invasion takes place, this contradiction becomes temporarily secondary and subordinate, and the contradiction between the semi-colonial nation as a whole and the imperialist aggressor comes to occupy the main place. As a consequence, the whole nation, that is, its different classes, except for a small number of traitors, must unite against imperialism. Here we have the theory of progressive bourgeois camps expressed in philosophical terms or pseudo-philosophical. Against the camp formed by imperialism and the small number of traitors that supports it, the progressive camp of the nation is formed, led by the bourgeoisie. 6. Revisionists and Marxists: summary of differences In conclusion, we see a perfectly clear thread from the Mensheviks anti-tsarist front to Mao s contradictions : it is the theory of progressive bourgeois camps. This theory is justified by the abusive generalisation of an actual fact: the differences between the different bourgeois sectors. According to Trotsky, in the bourgeois class there are always much greater antagonisms than in the bosom of the proletariat. It is an easy fact to explain. For the worker, it is the same to be exploited by one or another boss, either national or imperialist, while among the different bourgeois sectors there is a constant and fierce struggle for the distribution of the national and global added value. At the political level, this struggle is translated into the clash of parties, bourgeois unions, etc., which often reach physical confrontation: coups, civil wars, imperialist invasions, inter-imperialist wars. Sometimes, as in Mitterrand s case, the most leftist sector of the bourgeoisie is the government itself. In other cases, the more rightist sector establishes a fascist or Bonapartist government and may have the rest of the bourgeoisie against them. From this actual fact, revisionism deduces the party of the proletariat must be part of the progressive or democratic camp or, in the case of semi-colonial countries, the anti-imperialist camp. For this theory and policy, it does not matter whether the progressive camp is in power or in opposition. Against this theory of class collaboration, Marxism raises its classical conception, of a society divided into classes and of the need to develop the struggle between them until the conquest of power by the proletariat. This does not mean Marxism ignores the existence of friction between the different sectors of the bourgeoisie, and if these frictions reach a physical clash, the party must formulate a policy according to the circumstances. But this means the party must take advantage of those clashes, never supporting politically a front of class collaboration that may arise from them. Whatever the situation of the class Editorial CEHuS Page 7

15 Nahuel Moreno struggle, the immediate goal of the revolutionary Marxists does not change it is the proletarian revolution and the conquest of power. The latter is the fundamental difference between revisionists and Marxists, the one synthesising them all. Stalin hid his policy of class alliance during the Spanish Civil War behind the following argument: first defeat Franco, then fight for socialism. He said the same to justify the alliance with Anglo-American imperialism during world war: the first thing is to defeat Hitler. Mao expressed it in philosophical terms: first, eliminate the main contradiction China against Japan and then the contradiction between the classes will again be the main one. In other words, the revolution must go through two stages. In the first, the progressive camp must defeat the reactionary camp; in this, the policy of class collaboration applies. In the second stage, relegated to an indeterminate future, the struggle for socialism will be raised. What do Marxists hold? Let us suppose the apparently most favourable case for the position of the revisionists that two bourgeois camps are at war, as was the case between the Republic and the Franco regime in Spain. In this situation, the revisionists start from the basis there are two confronting camps and one is more progressive than the other, although they do not deny the bourgeois character of both. The starting point of the Marxists is: both are bourgeois camps, therefore counterrevolutionary. This is the essence of the problem. The appearance of the problem is that there is a confrontation, which in no way means this confrontation is not real. It means the confrontation responds to the fact there are differences how to crush a great workers rise and impose the triumph of the counter-revolution. The leadership of the Republic says this must be achieved by abolishing the monarchy, an institution especially irritating to the masses, and channelling the struggles to bourgeois parliamentarism. The fascists argue, however, it is necessary to physically massacre the workers, liquidate their union and political organisations, following the Hitlerian model. In Spain, that difference was settled by arms, but this is not always the case. In France, in 1934, there is a fascist coup that overthrows the president. However, the fascists could not drag an important sector of the bourgeoisie, because the two camps preferred to agree: keep the parliament to save the democratic forms, but increase the powers of the presidency to play a Bonapartist role. That is why Trotsky called the Third Republic, from February 1934, semi-parliamentary Bonapartism, i.e., a Bonapartist republic with some features of parliamentarism. From the class analysis of the camps confronted in war, Marxists argue that their immediate goal, the conquest of power by the proletariat, does not change. On the contrary, if the proletariat does not take power, there can be no solution to anything; neither to fascism, nor to the misery of the proletariat, or any of the problems of the masses, all resulting from the existence of the capitalist regime. But in the example we are dealing with there is an objective situation fascism has risen to physically massacre the workers and liquidate all their conquests. This is combined with the fact the revolutionary Marxists (the Trotskyists) are a small minority, while the masses follow the counter-revolutionary workers parties part of the progressive bourgeois camp. The masses see, correctly, in Franco the immediate enemy to defeat. Marxists want to win them for our conception that the enemy to defeat immediately is the bourgeoisie as a whole, through the conquest of power and the establishment of a workers state. For which of these two immediate goals do Marxists fight? For both; we know if we are not in the front row of the fight against Franco, there will be no way to win the masses for the fight against the bourgeoisie as a whole. This is why Trotsky says: We participate in the struggle against Franco as the best soldiers, and at the same time, in the interests of the victory over Fascism, we agitate for the social revolution and we prepare for the overthrow of the defeatist government of Negrin. Only such an attitude can give us an approach to the Page 8

16 The OCI (u) s Betrayal masses. ( Answer to Questions on the Spanish Situation, 14 September 1937, The Spanish Revolution ( ), p. 288.) In other words, the war between the Republic and Francoism can end with the triumph of one side or the other. But the triumph of the Republic never means the historical defeat of fascism. This danger will continue to exist, as long as the capitalist regime exists. There will also grow misery, not as a danger but as a reality; no problem can be solved without the conquest of power. Editorial CEHuS Page 9

17 Chapter II Revisionism in revolutionary parties The policy of the Mensheviks extended and generalised later by Stalin with the popular front and by Mao with the contradictions corresponds to a clear theory, the theory of camps. We insist on the word theory; it is not an empirical response to a certain turn of reality, but a conception that leads these revisionist and opportunist currents to apply this orientation so that the fronts arise in reality. Neither the Mensheviks, nor Stalin, nor Mao always made the fronts. On the contrary, the Russian liberal bourgeoisie had as a strategy to seek agreements with Tsarism. Likewise, despite Mao s efforts to form a solid front with Chiang Kai-shek against the Japanese invasion, this broke many times. And while the popular front is a permanent policy of the Stalinist parties since the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, in most occasions and countries they have not been able to form the front despite their efforts. But in exceptional moments of the historical process, two antagonistic fronts emerge that may settle their political differences by means of a civil war. This is characteristic of situations generated by great triumphs of the workers movement: the February revolution in Russia, the 1952 revolution in Bolivia, and the ongoing revolutions in Nicaragua and Iran, or the electoral triumphs of the French and Spanish popular fronts in In those moments, reality seems to prove the camps theorists right, since they arise in life itself and have, especially the latter, a multi-class character. The emergence of these progressive fronts exerts a strong pressure on the revolutionary parties that do not live in a crystal bell, but, although very minor, they are immersed in society and in the proletariat. Under these pressures, within the revolutionary parties, currents emerge that adopt the Menshevik-Stalinist-Maoist theory of camps. This phenomenon is observed mainly when the workers triumph is seriously threatened by the counter-revolution. For example, when the counter-revolution rises in arms to overthrow a popular-front government and crush the workers movement, as happened in the Spanish Civil War; or when imperialism resolves the time has come to colonise a semi-colonial country and overthrow the local bourgeois government. Precisely, Stalinism has found in the emergence of these serious counter-revolutionary dangers a magnificent opportunity to put into practice their camps theory. This, in turn, greatly multiplies the pressures on the revolutionary parties, leading some sectors of them to become a part, as we said, of the progressive bourgeois camp. To summarise, let us say then the permanent policy of the Mensheviks and their disciples, the Stalinists and the Maoists, is based on the theory of camps. Hence, all their efforts are directed towards the formation of popular fronts, anti-fascist fronts, antiimperialist fronts, or a thousand and one variations of the same, with sectors of the democratic, antitrust, etc. bourgeoisie. This policy does not depend on whether these fronts exist in reality. If they do not exist, as is the case most of the times, then it is a question of creating them, even if it forces them to swim against the tide. Page 10

18 The OCI (u) s Betrayal Instead, the revolutionary or left-centrist parties which, in violation of all Bolshevik principles, have politically supported these popular fronts of a class alliance, have not done so by consciously adopting the theory of camps, but because they have bowed down to the tremendous pressures exerted on the parties inserted in the workers movement when those fronts arise in reality. However, the act of giving in to these pressures generates an infernal logic. The revolutionary party that violates its principles to support the multiclass front finally falls into theoretical and political degeneration and ends up adopting the theory of camps as the permanent basis of its policy. This happened with Stalinism, which emerged as a wing of a revolutionary party, and in our ranks with Pabloism. The revolutionary party (or a sector of it) that abandons the politics of class independence when the two camps arise in reality, falls into an opportunist policy whose main characteristics are: It abandons the systematic denunciation of the government in its daily agitation and press and concentrates all its attacks on its reactionary adversaries. It stops attacking the counter-revolutionary workers parties that take part in the popular front government to seek agreements with them. It does not condemn the imperialist character of the government, nor does it call the workers movement to active solidarity with its colonial class brothers. It does not carry out a relentless struggle against the armed forces of the regime. It abandons the task of patiently explaining to the masses the fundamental goal in the stage opened by the proletarian triumph is to carry out the workers insurrection to overthrow the bourgeois government and establish revolutionary workers power. It does not raise government slogans. It does not have a permanent policy to develop and strengthen the revolutionary party, an indispensable condition for the triumph of the revolution. It is precisely opposite to the policy of a true Trotskyist party. While attacking the bourgeoisie, imperialism and the reactionary adversaries of the government, the Trotskyist party is constantly and relentlessly attacking the popular front government, the progressive bourgeois camp, and the counter-revolutionary workers parties that support or integrate them as servants of the declared enemies of the masses. In its daily agitation, the Trotskyist party constantly denounces the government and repudiates all its measures, however progressive they may seem. It instils in the masses an absolute mistrust and class hatred towards the government and constantly opposes it with slogans of power that show what kind of government it is necessary to establish. It does not abandon for a single day the struggle against its own country imperialism, against the popular front government that serves it and against the armed forces of the regime. There are certain sects and ultraleft or anarchist groups that may agree with this general policy. But there is a fact that separates them from the Leninist party. The axis of the Leninist party policy is to lead the workers and mass movement to its goal, the insurrection, to overthrow the government and establish the socialist republic. For this, it considers and constantly proclaims it is an indispensable condition to develop and fortify their party. The revolutionary party that hides its goal and this condition falls into opportunism. If a revolutionary party does not put itself forward to conquer power in the stage of the popular-front government, if it does not prepare for the revolutionary overthrow of the government, then it falls into opportunism because it is precisely at the stage of the popular-front government the possibility is raised of the working class seizing power led by the Trotskyist party. Now we will see how, throughout the history of the class struggle of this century, there have always been revolutionary parties or centrist currents of the left that adopt the revisionist policy of the camps. Editorial CEHuS Page 11

19 Nahuel Moreno 1. Kamenev-Stalin vs. Lenin and Trotsky The classic example of what we say happened in the Russian revolution between February and October, under the provisional government. On the one hand, there was a revolutionary bloc composed by a wing of the Marxist party (Lenin-Trotsky), some anarchist groups and the left Social Revolutionaries. At the other pole, an opportunist bloc emerged, composed of anarchists like Kropotkin, revisionists of Marxism like Plekhanov, the Menshevik internationalists led by Martov, and a section of the revolutionary Marxist party: the Kamenev-Stalin wing of the Bolshevik Party. From the revolution of February to March 1917 the Bolshevik party was led by a youthful current whose main spokesman was Molotov, editor of Pravda. The axis of its orientation was the systematic denunciation of the bourgeois government that emerged from the February revolution and the repudiation of all its measures. Kamenev and Stalin, on their arrival in Petrograd in March, sweep away that group from the leadership and stamp a new orientation, totally opportunistic, to the party and its organ. Let s see what they said, for example, regarding the crucial question of war: When one army stands opposed to another army, we read in one of its editorial articles, no policy could be more absurd than the policy of proposing that one of them should lay down arms and go home. Such a policy would not be a policy of peace, but a policy of enslavement, a policy to be scornfully rejected by a free people. No. The people will remain intrepidly at their post, answering bullet with bullet and shell with a shell. This is beyond dispute. We must not allow any disorganisation of the armed forces of the revolution. (Editorial No secret diplomacy, Pravda No 9, 15 March 1917.) If so, how does it intend to end the war? The same article replies: Our slogan is not the empty cry Down with war!, which means the disorganisation of the revolutionary army and of the army that is becoming ever more revolutionary. Our slogan is to bring pressure to bear on the Provisional Government to compel it to make, without fail, openly and before the eyes of world democracy, an attempt to induce all the warring countries to start immediate negotiations to end the world war. Till then let everyone remain at his post. And if those warring countries do not want to make peace, what happens? If the democratic forces in Germany and Austria pay no heed to our voice, then we shall defend our fatherland to the last drop of our blood. (Resolution of the Petrograd Soviet, quoted with approval in the same article.) And Pravda of 16 March insists: The way out is the path of bringing pressure to bear on the Provisional Government with the demand that the government proclaims its readiness to begin immediate negotiations for peace. Let s examine these positions in detail. In the first place, there are no classes that struggle, but a free people that remains in its place. This free people is, evidently, the one that triumphed in the February revolution; but not just the workers and peasants who made the revolution, but also the liberal bourgeoisie that came to power thanks to it, and established the provisional government. There the camp is already formed, called people : the bourgeois provisional government, the liberal bourgeoisie with its party, the Kadet, the Soviet led by the counterrevolutionary workers parties, and the workers and peasants who fight in the bourgeois army, called here armed forces of the revolution. Opposite to it, stands the other camp, the reactionary camp, integrated by the other belligerent countries (again, we do not speak of classes but of countries). Our duty as revolutionaries is to fight loyally in the camp of the people ; that everyone remains at his post, we shall defend our fatherland to the last drop of our blood. But at the same time, it is necessary to end the war, which is in the hands of the chief of Page 12